Chapter Text
Another cheer erupts around you as your wooden sword flies out of your hand, cast aside by your feet. You take a step back, but it is too late. Your heart thunders through your entirety, yet your body remains still, and you don’t dare to take another step. Not when a sword’s tip is nearly at your throat, threatening to slice your skin. The applause stretches for a moment longer before the steel blade falters and then is lowered, and you finally let out a shaky sigh of defeat.
You didn’t win again. It was expected, but you hated that thought. Even after all this time, you weren’t good enough. At first, the duels were fun–you were learning, improving in real time. The Knave is truly an impressive swordswoman, but for all you have done–incorporating new techniques, switching up movements, utilizing feints–you couldn’t win, not even seem to surprise or shock her. Everything was fruitless and you grew desperate as the more days passed. The defeats grew more in number, and the confidence in your skills, the same ones that set you apart from other rookies in the Marine, faltered.
You grimace down at your feet while the small crowd dies down, the lively crew of the House of the Hearth pirates praising their compliment. The occasional gentle encouragement accompanies their whoops and hollers, but you try to earnestly ignore them. Their words make your chest uncomfortably tight.
“You’re improving,” you hear the pirate captain say matter-of-factly when you pick up your fallen sword. You click your tongue and shake your head, clenching and unclenching your fists. You bury the fuzzy warmth that bubbles inside you deep, deep enough to have sunk to the seabed of your heart. You are not to take praises or encouragements from pirates sincerely. You have already crossed too many lines as a Marine.
“Again,” you demand, reassuming position for another bout, raising your wooden stick.
A sliver of a smile forms its way on the victor’s face, and she shakes her head. Clapping her hands together, she gathers the crew’s attention. “Children, that should be enough entertainment for one night, yes? Retire for bed, unless you’re on Lookout duty tonight.”
Your lips form a tight line at her rejection.
Some whiny protests come from the younger of the crewmembers, which only irks you more. So young are these children, and your thoughts on the House of the Hearth pirates remain unresolved, still as complicated as they were when you encountered them. What kind of testament is to their captain that these children can still behave appropriately for their age? Should such child-likeness be deprived of them in favor for the harsh conditions they face, or is it exactly because of the weariness that surrounds them that they should remain innocent?
As they scurry off, your gaze never leaves them until the last, lagging crewmember shuffles into his cabin. He is barely of age, just shy of 15 or 16 you can guess. He wanders like he’s never been dealt a single bad hand of fate, but the large scar on his face implies otherwise. All the boyish confidence and vitality a child his age should have are present in his stature.
“What draws your attention?” The woman breaks your ponder, and you snap your attention back to her.
“Nothing,” You answered quickly. “Did you really stop our duel to retire?”
The Knave gives you that strange look that she has been giving you for the past week, taking in your entirety as if trying to decipher you. “No. I thought the reprieve was necessary for you.”
Your eyebrows knitted together. “For me?”
“Your hands were shaking.”
You glance down at your hand holding the blade. Confirming her statement, your hand is trembling, and even when you willed it, the movements did not stop for a moment. The aches in your legs and arms protest, but you ready your sword again.
“Another round.” It’s not a request from you.
“Are Marines this sore of losers?” The pirate captain remarks, but there is little light-heartedness to be found in her tone. It is mocking, provocative, and truly irritating. Her pose remains casual, and she does not lift her sword.
“I’m using you for training. Raise your sword.”
The captain does not twitch a single muscle. Instead, she lifts her gaze to you, her expression shifting to something more familiar of a pirate. Cutting into you deeper than any sword could, her stare hardens.
“You seem to forget your place, Marine. The outcome will not change tonight.”
That truth is undeniable and yet, the recognition still churns your chest. Her words do little to the blaze that refuses to smolder, common sense be damned. Your week-long losing streak only frustrated you increasingly, bullying you beyond your patience and humility. Among your fellow Marines, you were said to be one of the best rookies among your rank, a rising star on the seas bound to shine brightly. What little that renown meant every time your sword clashed with the Harbinger’s. None of the acknowledgement you received or your rank as commander have aided you in combat. Was it all pretenses because of your family’s lineage and status, or had this always been the limit of your abilities? Have you always been this fraud?
The uncertainty for the answer only makes your mouth sour.
You part your lips, about to utter something that is above the likes of pirates and below the integrity of the Marines–a plea–but you stop yourself. Even in your hazy midst of inferiority, you must retain a semblance of dignity.
“Just indulge me this once more,” you finally answer, a finality to your voice, a callback to her own words when she first asked for a duel.
The two of you knew you were never going to let her refute. The tip of your wooden weapon scrapes across the floorboards before you lunge at her, a sharp and precise thrust that would have surely met her. Effortlessly, however, she parries with a swipe to the right, diverting your dominant away. She swings down, slashing to your left with a disturbing swiftness. Your trained instincts allow you to avoid it narrowly, leaning back just for the blade to graze your shirt. Taking advantage of her position, with a sharp turn, you slice down across to her chest, only for your blade to be caught halfway by her hilt.
The two of you remain at a momentary standstill, unmoving and contending for control. Eventually, however, your arm gives way, and she thwarts your hand to the side, leaving your front vulnerable. She takes the opportunity to thrust into you, and you’re forced to evade with a large step back, only she follows up, relentlessly attacking you with a flurry of slices and cuts. Despite your exhaustion and soreness, your defense endures, but a chance for the offensive is scarce. The Knave throws in the occasional feint, most of which you are able to guard at the last instant, while the rest you utilize your agility to avoid.
Eventually, your fatigue shows through once you raise your blade to defend a thrust, but her sword slides to the side against the length of your weapon, cutting into the top of your shoulder. You bite down a hiss of pain, embracing the position and stepping forward into her. Preparing a pinpoint thrust that would have surely met her had it not been that your knee locked into place, cramping up from overexertion. An intense pang shoots through you, unable to continue forward, causing you to collapse onto the floor. You clutch onto your leg while your muscles clench and unclench rapidly, spreading the throbs across your body. A throaty cry of agony is ripped from your throat, tears brimming at your eyes that threaten to fall.
The wooden blade clatters to the floor at the captain’s feet.
You bite down sharply on your tongue to repress any more noises of weakness, regretting it immediately when the thick, metallic, liquid floods your mouth. Lying on the floor, you could no longer bear anymore ignorance to the state of your body, all the weariness and stings you earned throughout the week shoving its way to the front of your mind. No longer could you wield your limbs, not when it feels as if every inch of your flesh is contracting within itself.
The pain eats away at not just the function of your body, but at your self-regard. Your crushed morale invites your insecurities into your thoughts freely. Was this all you could do? Is this all you could amount to? Why couldn’t you be better? How could you expect to be a great Marine if there is this indomitable force in your opposition? You can never gain your family’s love or respect like this. Not only had you faced the humiliation of being saved by pirates, but also repeatedly bested by one. You were pitied by pirates, damn it. Those shrill, mocking comments of the crew rings through your head, weren’t they just jabs at you, wanting to continue your own humiliation? They must have been cheering for your defeat, why wouldn’t they? They would be ecstatic to see a Marine, their enemy, be beaten down, over and over again by one of their own.
You know that the Marines would be if it was a pirate in the same situation.
Through the blurred pain and the internal turmoil around you, both of your legs seize up, like anchors have been chained to each one. Each movement of muscle is agony, but even that is dulled by your oppressive thoughts. So you lay on your side, uselessly, uncaring of the vulnerability your current state implies. Archons, what would your captain think if he knew you were in this state?
Nothing had changed. You hadn’t gotten better, hadn’t gotten closer to being a better fighter. The most you achieved was swallowing loss after loss. Defeat and failure was unbecoming of someone from your lineage–not your family. You were supposed to be one of the greats, that was in your blood. Victory and glory was laid down before you, but that didn’t seem the case anymore. Not only were you a failure, you were spared and sheltered by pirates, and then played house with them; all things that Marines should have never allowed to happen. You became a fraud of a Marine, letting these damn pirates make you doubt those among your own ranks and shake up your convictions. They thought you were weak enough to recruit you. You have long betrayed the values the moment you were rescued. And even now, you’re unable to redeem yourself.
Why? Why aren’t you good enough? If you were meant to be great, why was this where you were? Where have your praised swordsmanship and ingenuity gone? Broken and defeated in front of a pirate, did they abandon you or were they never there? Had all the years of training–enduring your family’s harsh demands and surviving their strict regime–all for naught, wasted on a sham of a Marine? Was clawing, struggling for their approval and gaze a futile effort? Have you always been undeserving of them, undeserving to join them, undeserving of the rank and achievements you gained?
You never deserved anything because you were never enough; surely, you wouldn’t be enough now.
Your body refuses to move as you command it to. It has given up on you too.
The scraping of wood cuts through and through your blurry vision you watch as an item is kicked towards you by the Knave’s heels, stopping just before your face. It is the wooden sword.
“You’ll need it again.” As if her words were definite, she carries them with a certain resolution. Her heels click against the floor, growing quieter as she walks away, not a single glance back.
“No, I won’t,” you rasp out, barely audible.
Her heels stop at your response. Silence stretches on for what feels like hours. What would the great Knave have to say for the fallen Marine?
“It wasn’t a suggestion.” Cold, absolute. Yet underlying that, in a similar way your father would berate you, there’s the oh, so familiar disappointment. You hate it, hate it, hate it.
Even the Knave’s discontent makes your chest twist excruciatingly, and your body weighs heavily with their heavy judgement. All too vividly does the memory of your near-death flood back to you, the same helplessness and despair you felt when you were plunged into frigid seas pangs through you. Your captain watched your desperation, heard your distraught cries, and turned away. And for what?
Maybe your captain was right to have abandoned you then.
Your chest twists and coils inside of you, painfully.
You should have just died then.
It would have been simple. It would have been easy. It would have been a tragedy. Your family will speak of you in recognition of you, and then resume their lives. Your life would be just a small, overlooked blemish in your family’s legacy of greatness.
At the very least, you would have died with honor, as a hero, without having to suffer being spared by pirates. You would have been a sprout that got pruned before it could blossom, not the fallen star you are now. Or was it that your captain knew beforehand of your futility and just grasped the opportunity to get rid of one more fool unbefitting of the Marines? Your being might as well have been irrelevant, unnecessary for the Marines. Then was it truly a betrayal to you when it was to benefit the Marines as a whole?
“I’m… I can’t.” A weak, broken sound buried under the crashing of waves against the boat and the moaning of winds.
She does not say anything. She does not need to. The silence implies enough.
You can’t bear to look up. You don’t want your imagination to confirm the expression on their face. Perhaps pride at what she’s accomplished? She and her crew have played their psychological games on you, and now that she’s seen how you’ve cracked, she’s enjoying the sight. You can imagine the rumored, wicked smile of hers as she peers down at you. You wonder how much more elated she would be if she knew of your family, how nice it would be to have taken down someone from the prestigious Marine lineage–the very one that has inspired so much fear among the mass of pirates. To know how different you were from the rest of your family members. And you were nothing compared to them.
Her footsteps sound through the ship, but this time they grow louder, closer. You can see her heels approach, coming into view.
“Are you no longer going to fight me?” Firm, but undoubtedly with a challenge behind them.
Even if you willed yourself to, you could not summon the strength to answer truthfully. You can no longer meet her challenge–you’re not an equal to her and never were.
“If you won’t continue our bouts, then I’ll take that as an acceptance to my offer.”
Briefly, your bewilderment snaps you away from your despondency. “What?”
“My offer to join my crew. I will announce it to them the next morning. The children will be pleased to have another with them.”
The damn audacity of this scheming pirate–! She dare say such an outrageous claim with an aggravatingly stoic tone! To make such a sardonic jest at a fallen person! Oh, you wish you could overthrow her off of the ship this very second.
“I have agreed to no such thing!” You cry out immediately, disturbed at the lengths the pirate captain leapt to reach that conclusion. Your fist slams down against the floorboard, finally lifting your furious gaze to meet her eyes. Once more that night, you are shocked–there is no glee to her expression, nor is there pity. Only a chilling indifference. It bemuses you. Is this no trick or joke played by her–not another show to further humiliate you?
“If you will not fight me, it means you no longer oppose me. And I will take that as a willingness to join my crew.” As if it was the only next logical sequence of events.
“That is preposterous reasoning!”
“You are my captive,” she enunciates the last word, dripping with authority. Reminding you once more of her words on the day of your ‘rescue.’
I chose for you to live. Your life or death is my choice.
You shudder.
“I can very easily subject you to accepting my graciousness. So on what grounds do you believe you can reject me?”
That much is true. You cannot stop her, that fact was made evident. However, the thought of being among them, with the Knave… you instinctively scrunch up your nose and refute it. Even you could not stoop that low.
“I won’t join you.” This is the singular thing you are certain of, the only words you have any strength behind.
“And for what reason?”
“Because I am…” The words are stuck in your throat. You sniffle.
Even if you don’t deserve that title, it’s all you have. It’s all you are. Is it? What are you if not a Marine? Being a Marine is all you coveted your entire life. It is all there is to you. For how weak that you are, for how unbefitting you are, you are desperate to cling onto this one thing, the one label that ties your life to something greater.
“What are you?”
But you can no longer proudly proclaim it anymore. You glance back down at the floor, skirting your eyes away from her form. Her unyielding stare unnerves you, prickling over your skin.
Another stretch of quietude slips between the two of you. The pirate captain sighs once more as she approaches closer, crouching next to you and peering down at your figure. You duck your head to hide the remnants of the tears on your face.
“Are you able to stand?”
You don’t want to–no, you can’t admit it. A voice inside your head, belonging to your father, demands for you to stand, to reject any offer of help or kindness, to grit your teeth and push through. That is what any good Marine should be able to do. Anything less is unsatisfactory. In combat against pirates, no one–not your crew and especially not pirates– will be there to help you.
Then why did she save you? She offered you a position to join her crew, even if it was because she pitied. She thought you were wronged by your Marine captain, but reframing that night… you could no longer see it the way she did. You weren’t wronged. He only saw how much of a burden you would be. If your captain didn’t want you, why would she? And why would she let you stay after you rejected her? Why not forsake you into the sea; just like your own captain had done? Hadn’t she already seen the same worthlessness that your captain must have noticed?
The pirate captain draws your attention before you can delve into your thoughts again. “It is a simple question. Or did the Marines fail to teach you how to answer with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no?’”
“No,” you finally profess in a stifled mutter. It’s already too late for you to redeem yourself anyway. Not to yourself, not in the eyes of the Marines, and not to the Knave.
No longer do you have the resolve to contest her again, not with your legs challenging any stir of movement and your upper body all too heavy to support. You tense up when she touches the small of your back while the other arm slides underneath your knees. She heaves you up with little difficulty in her arms, a testament to her strength hidden by her lean stature, carrying you in such a mortifying way like a petulant child. Thank the Archons no one is here to witness you.
She’s warm. Almost unbearably so. It should be impossible through the layers of fabric that separates the two of you, but somehow she emits body warmth like a fire. So different from the howling winds and the lapping of the waves against the hull. Different from her minced words and her hardened glares. But nothing like the way she holds you. It would be better if she simply tosses you like a sack to wherever it is she intends on taking you to, but once again, you’re powerless to change this situation. It’s gentle, unlike anything you know of her, what little you do that is.
It’s foreign. Too different from everything you’ve been accustomed to before all of this happened. You detest it. Why must she so frustratingly contrast every presumption you had of her?
Somehow, it makes your form want to relax, release all of the knitted tension in your muscles. You grow drowsier with each passing second, but you know better to surrender to such brief respite. The lessons of a Marine shoves itself in front of your thoughts, reminding you once more how you’re failing their lessons. This situation is too compromising of a position. You’re vulnerable, and she can easily hurt or incapacitate you. Even when she’s yet done anything to suggest she would at the moment, all your mind can think of is the danger she imposes just by being what she is.
She’s a pirate. Someone who raids and plunder. Someone who is supposed to fall by your blade. Someone who you’re supposed to protect people from.
You know this, oh, so clearly. But with your mind in a fog, contending between its exhaustion and vigilance, it seemed like that fact was little more than a worn ache. This, too, is a battle you cannot win and you give way to weariness. While she makes her way through the ship with a steady pace, your head gradually tilts downwards until you are leaning against her shoulder. If she paid any mind to that, she did not make it apparent.
Fatigue makes its way up from your limbs and body to your face. Each interval between blinks becomes shorter and shorter, and staying awake begins straining your eyes.
Rest comes easy with her. You wish it didn’t.
If you were more sound of mind… well, you suppose it did not matter anymore.
Just as you close your eyes, she stops, shifting you to be supported by one arm as she unlocks her door with a key she fishes from her belt. Following her entrance, she shuts the door with a sharp kick. The resounding thud jolts you awake right as she crouches down to lay you down on the cot on her floor. Like every night for the past week, she fixes your restraints, attaching a chain to your ankle. ‘Safety,’ she had replied when you inquired her, though you hardly pose a threat to her awake, much less asleep.
She does not order you to sleep, as she had done the other times. Of course, you never listened to her before, but you are terribly tempted to now. But as you settle in, you notice that she does not head to sleep, instead seating herself at her desk and lighting the lantern by her desk. From your position, you cannot see what she is doing, but you assume she is reading something. Strange. Most pirates, like most masses, are illiterate, as literacy is typically reserved for nobles and aristocrats. Who had taught her how to read? Even your literacy is limited, tailored to just be able to read relevant documents for when you become a high enough ranking Marine.
There is the flutter of pages as she thumbs through the text. You have never been curious then, but you are now. You let out a soundless yawn, sitting up and rubbing your eyes to stay up for just a little longer.
You do not know what possessed you, but the words come from your mouth before you can stop it. “What are you reading?”
It’s barely louder than a whisper, and you would not be surprised if it goes unnoticed by her. You think it did, until she finally answers.
“A fascinating account from a former Marine Admiral,” she drawls sarcastically. “The previous Admiral [Last Name].”
Your blood freezes as you hear your last name, your heart skipping a beat as a singular thought runs through your mind. Does she know your family? Of what family you came from? Is this a taunt, or merely a coincidence?
“What could a pirate benefit from reading that?” You question, concealing your shock.
“Reading how the former Admiral reveres himself is quite amusing, though the feats he writes of having achieved are truly impressive if they are to be accurate. I cannot imagine how many journals he must have filled with flattery of himself. In any case, for as entertaining stories as his journeys seem to be, what he details are faithful to current Marine strategies and actions.”
You knit your eyebrows, still trying to discern if the mention of your family name was a coincidence or intentional. You decide not to reveal anything, though it feels like a betrayal to say nothing in defense of your retired uncle.
“How were you able to obtain such a book? A bookkeeper would never allow a pirate to purchase that text.”
“Purchase?” She chuckles, shaking her head. “Did you forget who I am?”
She says it so casually, as if it does not evoke the thought of her committing the worst atrocities a human can commit. You really hate how often she makes you forget what she is. To what lengths did she go just to take what she wanted?
“Did you kill him? The bookkeeper?” You ask levelly.
The Knave raises an eyebrow, looking up from her desk to meet your eyes. Taking a moment to examine your expression, something she seems to love to do with how frequently she does it, she replies. “No. In fact, I did not touch them. Does that reassure you?”
It does. A part of you chants that they are all lies, that the pirates are not above anything, but you swallow that part down. “Did you steal from him?”
“No. In fact, when I stepped into his establishment, he was very insistent on offering me any texts that I wanted without payment. I took his offer, and this was one of his books. I left with no damage to his store or his person.”
“He was terrified of you.”
“He was,” she agrees. “But had he not offered, I would have, truly, paid for them fully.”
“With the money you had stolen and killed for?”
“Whatever answer that I give you, you will always assume what you have already convinced yourself of.”
That reply silences you. She is different from everything you have been taught, almost. The Knave is intelligent, cunning, yes, but she is not crude… that is if what she is saying is true. She is not above reason and morals, that much seems true. Were other pirates like her, or is she the exception? While she technically did not answer your question, what reason does she have to lie? Or has she been lying this entire time? Archons, the Harbinger is exasperating to even try and comprehend. You were too tired for any more of this.
You lay back down onto the cot, the soreness of everything getting to you. An explicable thought comes to you, and you cannot help but vocalize it.
“Do you read aloud to your children?”
“Yes. Though they prefer sea shanties and fairy tales.”
“Read to me.”
“...very well.”
And she does. You do not know why she obliges you. You do not know why you would request such a thing. But as the very journeys your uncle retold to you when you were younger fills the room, you feel your eyelids droop lower and lower. Her speech is silky smooth, rich and deep that’s pleasant to your ears. Why had you only noticed now?
You drift off sooner than you want. Vaguely, you get the sensation of something being draped over the length of your body. It smells of brine, cinnamon, wood, and smoke. You pull it closer to you.
It smells of a hearth.